Happy 2-2

Happy 2/2 Thursday! And, to a lesser extent, happy Groundhog Day! Make sure you cook your groundhogs all the way through, you don't want to catch any food poisoning salmonella, now do you? Not when winter is almost over!

Why isn't it sa-mon-ella, like salmon? Oh. Dr. Daniel E. Salmon. Huh. "It was the French bacteriologist Joseph Léon Marcel Ligniéres (1868-1933) who, in 1900, suggested that the entire group of bacteria to which the swine pest bacillus belongs, should be termed Salmonella in honour of Salmon." Yeah, that's my goal in life. Have a bacteria--nay, an entire group of bacteria named in my honor. (sal-mon-eya, is my vote)

Ahem. Oh, sad, next Monday is Waitangi Day. I wish that was on a Thursday. Wouldn't that be a fun and special Thursday? Here, I will look up Waitangi Day for you: "Unlike Australia, whose national day marks the settlement at Sydney Cove by Europeans, which is often viewed as "invasion day" by the Aboriginal people, New Zealand’s national day commemorates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi on February 6, 1840."

And while I'm at it... "The groundhog tradition stems from similar beliefs associated with Candlemas Day and the days of early Christians in Europe, and for centuries the custom was to have the clergy bless candles and distribute them to the people. Even then, it marked a milestone in the winter and the weather that day was important."

"Thursday comes after Wednesday yet before Friday, and is found by some to be the best day of the week. As a timeless tradition, there is no one person thought to be the founder of Thursdays, but the title of Caretaker is currently held by Stephanie Anderson. This holiday has yet to reach national awareness, but through extraordinary efforts on the part of its followers, Thursday hopes to eventually become the best-loved day of the week throughout the world." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thursday#Named_days)

Mm-hm, I got that straight off the internet, too. The internet is a vast storehouse of knowledge.

I changed my calendar today, so I can't easily tell you of all the cool stuff that happened last week, on account of my dying memory. Buuuut...I went to that community garden, and spent two hours picking eucalyptus leaves off the plot. Because the leaves are acidic, or something, and are bad for growing things. Annnnd....of course there was Chinese New Year.

Alsooooo...we went out to Irwindale to see a guy who has a "Fotopiano" (gosh, Google, you fail me!!) which was created to make sound effects for vaudeville, and then adapted for theater use for the silent films. Like, if you see silent films nowadays, on tape or TV or whatever, and you hear the piano music and the sound effects along with it, imagine all that noise being made by one guy on a fotopiano. It was pretty intense.

Oh, by the way, did I tell you guys that I'm officially a film student now? I don't remember how much I've sent out about my saga into the CBA major, but now all the paperwork is in and it's official. I even get cinema-related emails now!

One last thing--speaking of notices sent out by departments, guess what the English dept. never told me? That I was published in that lit thingie. Remember when I asked what stories I should submit? "Forever Swirled Up" got into the magazine-thing. And I only know because Katherine (new anime buddy) randomly picked one up somewhere and saw my name in it. But you'd think that they woulda sent out *anything* telling *anybody* that this thing'd been published, and then *something* to the people who were published in it. I don't even know how to hunt down a copy of my own. Che, English Department. I knew they were shifty folk.

Happy last six weeks of winter!
-Steph